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08 March 2014

Amid a surge of Islamic militancy in North Africa, a team of fewer
than 50 U.S. special operations troops with a single helicopter arrived
at a remote base in western Tunisia last month.

Their mission: train Tunisian troops in counter-terrorism tactics.

The operation was one of dozens of U.S. military
deployments in Africa over the last year, often to tiny and temporary
outposts. The goal is to leverage American military expertise against an
arc of growing instability in North Africa and many sub-Saharan
countries, from Mali in the west to Somalia in the east.

The small-scale operations by the Pentagon's
six-year-old Africa Command reflect an effort to avoid provoking
anti-U.S. militants in the region — and wariness of getting drawn into
new conflicts after 13 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S.
commanders for Africa face tight limits on the forces and equipment they
can put on the ground or in the air, despite responsibility for a vast
geographic area.

Classified guidance approved by the White House last fall called for
the Pentagon to "deter" terrorist attacks from Africa on U.S. territory,
facilities or allies without creating a large military footprint,
according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss
classified material.

Based in Stuttgart, Germany, Africa Command has only about 2,000
military and civilian personnel assigned to coordinate U.S. defense
programs in about 38 African countries, although 5,000 or more U.S.
troops are frequently on the continent for operations and training
missions.

It's still a tiny fraction of the combined forces under Central
Command, which oversees the war in Afghanistan and bases in the Middle
East, or under Pacific Command, which has become a Pentagon priority
since the White House announced a strategic "rebalancing" of forces to
Asia in 2012.

U.S. military commanders working in Africa thus rely on small teams
of special operations troops, U.S.-trained forces from friendly African
countries, and European allies, especially France, that have stepped up
their own military presence and operations.

In Niger, for example, U.S. and French air forces based at an airport
in Niamey, the capital, are flying unarmed Reaper drones to gather
intelligence. They conduct aerial surveillance across several Saharan
countries where some members of the Tuareg minority group have joined
Islamist warlords and farther south in Nigeria, U.S. military officers
say.

Three violent extremist organizations are the chief U.S. concern. Al Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb is active in northern and western Africa,
especially Mali, and is considered the greatest threat to Americans.

But U.S. troops also are advising the Nigerian army as it establishes
a special operations command to combat Boko Haram — which has launched
hundreds of violent attacks across Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria —
and supporting African Union troops against extremist Shabab militants
in Somalia.

The U.S. command acknowledged in January that it had sent a small
team of advisors to Somalia in December, the first time American troops
have been stationed there since militia fighters in Mogadishu, the
capital, shot down two helicopters and killed 18 U.S. servicemen in the
1993 "Black Hawk Down" incident.

"Most of the countries we're dealing with don't want a large U.S.
presence," said Army Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee Magee, the commander of a
130-soldier "crisis response" unit stationed in Djibouti, a tiny former
French colony in the Horn of Africa, where the U.S. maintains its only
major military base on the continent. National Security Advisor Susan
Rice is scheduled to visit the base this weekend.

Known as the East Africa Response Force, Magee's unit was formed
after the September 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic compound and
nearby CIA base in Benghazi, Libya. Africa Command was unable to send troops in time to help CIA and State Department security personnel fend off militants who stormed the compounds and left four Americans dead, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

If a U.S. diplomatic post in East Africa comes under attack or U.S.
citizens need to be quickly evacuated, Magee said, his unit can deploy
within 18 hours and up to 1,500 miles from Djibouti.

Another new quick reaction force of 550 Marines, stationed at an air
base in Moron, Spain, is charged with responding to crises in North and
West Africa, officials say. The force has six V-22 Ospreys, tilt-rotor
aircraft that take off and land like helicopters, as well as two
refueling tankers. They give the Marines the capability to fly thousands
of miles to remote locations in Africa, said Col. Scott Benedict, the
commander.

The Pentagon said Friday that the Spanish government had approved an
expansion of the force to 850 Marines in April, with the number of
aircraft increasing to 16.

Both units were sent to South Sudan in December to help evacuate Americans and guard the U.S. Embassy after fierce fighting broke out between rival armed factions.

But the operation also highlighted the risks the Pentagon faces when
it seeks to intervene with light forces in remote places. Three Ospreys
were hit by gunfire and had to abort their mission.

The operation in Tunisia highlights another challenge.

Government security forces have been battling militants from the
banned Islamist movement Ansar al Sharia, one of the radical groups to
emerge since the 2011 "Arab Spring" uprising that ousted President Zine el Abidine ben Ali. Tunisia has seen a sharp increase in suicide attacks and assassinations in the last two years.

But because of Tunisian government concern that the presence of U.S.
soldiers could provoke public opposition, the Americans operate far from
the deserts of southern Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, where attacks by
rebel groups, tribal gangs and Islamist militants, some with ties to Al
Qaeda, have been increasing, the officials say.

"They're not able to do a whole lot, and they are in a place where
there isn't a lot of activity," said a senior military officer who
requested anonymity in discussing sensitive details of the U.S. force in
Tunisia.

Anne Wolf, a Tunis-based analyst who has written for the U.S.
Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center, said even a small number
of U.S. troops could inflame Tunisia's tense security situation.

"Any involvement of foreign troops would risk provoking further
responses from violent Salafists," she said, referring to Tunisia's
Sunni Muslim extremists. "It would confirm their allegations that the
government is controlled by foreign powers who are meddling into
Tunisian affairs."

Except for major exercises, Africa Command officials normally don't
announce deployments for reasons of operational security. They confirmed
the current mission in western Tunisia, but the statement had few
details, including how long the troops would remain.

"At the request of the government of Tunisia," U.S. troops are
conducting "an episodic training event … after months of planning" that
"improves the capabilities of Tunisian forces to protect civilians from
current and emerging threats," the statement reads.